We must not forget that Buddhism has disappeared from India proper, although it dominates in Ceylon and Burma, and although a few Buddhist travellers find their way back to the land of its origin and sojourn there.
Indeed, if I were called upon to give a rough comparative numerical estimate of the six chief religious systems of the world, I should be inclined, on the whole, to regard Confucianism as constituting, next to Christianity, the most numerically prevalent creed. We have to bear in mind the immense populations, both in China and Japan, whose chief creed is Confucianism.
Professor Legge informs me that Dr. Happer--an American Presbyterian Missionary of about 45 years standing, who has gone carefully into the statistics of Buddhism--reckons only 20 millions of Buddhists in China, and not more than 72-1/2 millions in the whole of Asia. Dr. Happer states that, if the Chinese were required to class themselves as Confucianists or Buddhists or Taoists, 19/20ths, if not 99/100ths, of them would, in his opinion, claim to be designated as Confucianists.
In all probability his estimate of the number of Buddhists in China is too low, but the Chinese ambassador Liu, with whom Professor Legge once had a conversation on this subject, ridiculed the view that they were as numerous as the Confucianists.
Undeniably, as it seems to me, the next place after Christianity and Confucianism should be given to Brahmanism and Hinduism, which are not really two systems but practically one; the latter being merely an expansion of the former, modified by contact with Buddhism.
Brahmanism, as I have elsewhere shown, is nothing but spiritual Pantheism; that is, a belief in the universal diffusion of an impersonal Spirit (called Brahman or Brahma)--as the only really existing Essence--and in its manifesting itself in Mind and in countless material forces and forms, including gods, demons, men, and animals, which, after fulfilling their course, must ultimately be re-absorbed into the one impersonal Essence and be again evolved in endless evolution and dissolution.
Hinduism, with its worship of Vish[n.]u and [.S]iva, is based on this pantheistic doctrine, but the majority of the Hindus are merely observers of Brahmanical institutions with their accompanying Hindu caste usages. If, however, we employ the term Hindu in its widest acceptation (omitting only all Islamized Hindus) we may safely affirm that the adherents of Hinduism have reached an aggregate of nearly 200 millions. In the opinion of Sir William Wilson Hunter, they are still rapidly increasing, both by excess of births over deaths and by accretions from more backward systems of belief.